February 14, 2015: In the years following September 11, 2001 the United States officially went after all forms of terrorism, not just the Islamic variety. This included what the Americans called “ecoterrorism.” This form of extremist activity mainly involved radical groups that used violence against people and (mostly) property accused of harming the environment or animals. Ecoterrorism is basically a worldwide movement that grew to noticeable proportions after the 1960s. Yet since 1970 there have only been about 5,600 acts of ecoterrorism resulting in three deaths, a few dozen injuries and mostly vandalism. About 20 percent of this took place in the United States with nearly as much in Britain (which, because of a much smaller population, had over four times more such ecoterrorism per-capita than the United States.)

Not surprisingly the “war on ecoterrorism” never got the attention or the resources as did efforts to deal with Islamic terrorism. Might have something to do with the fact that there was no there there.